SLP Commitments: Resolutions vs Intentions

Resolutions for have historically been things that I’ve wanted to change.  I’ll lose 10 pounds, drink more water, exercise more, swear less etc.  A resolution seems to start at the end and then you hope you don’t break it.  I admire my friends and colleagues who success with resolutions.  I’m just not that disciplined.

So instead, I think of the first month of the year as time to reflect and to set some “intentions” or commitments for the next year.  I ask myself questions about what I want December of 2017:

• How do I want to look at the end of 2017?
• If I made a scrapbook of 2017, what pictures would I like to see in it?
• What do I want to remember fondly?
• Where do I want to go in 2017?
• What will I be upset about if I don’t get done?
• What things will make my life seem better if I get them done?

Set your intentions or goals

Have you ever thought: “If only I had more time, I’d like to….”  Remember when you were a child and time seemed to move so slowly?  Now it seems like I blink and another year has passed.  If we don’t set an intention or a goal, we won’t make the time for what we really want to get done.  Instead it will get filled up with the minutiae of every day life.

Let’s say you want to learn more about phonology.  Your frustrated because your caseload is too high and you spend most of your open time completing your MA billing.   There is no time for anything else.

I tend to fall into a pattern where I spend more time thinking about how busy I am and what I need to get done.  So I get stuck in this pattern of treating, documenting and kind of freaking out about how much I need to do for my job.  Which isn’t to say that you shouldn’t try to advocate for our profession, student and clients related to unreasonable caseload sizes.  But there is a difference between advocating and just spinning your wheels looking at your calendar or schedule.    Now I’ve spent an hour that week thinking about how much I have to get done-instead of just doing it.  If I set an intention or goal to learn about a certain area (maybe it is phonology), I can look for opportunities or small windows of time to move that goal forward.

Here are my goals/intentions for 2017:

1. Spend more time with family and friends
2. Feel more gratitude for what I have
3. Improving professional knowledge/advocacy for profession

Think about your Next Steps

The thing about goals is that they can be pretty big.  If all I had were these intentions, I don’t know if I would reach them because mine are pretty vague.

Your goal is like a destination, how you get there can be in a variety of different ways.  Let’s say you set a goal to learn more about Phonology in 2017.

Your next steps list might look like this:

• Organize/get picture cards for phonological targets
• Find a CEU course for phonology
• Read articles on Caroline Bowen or Dawn Moore’s site
• Create a list of online or other resources for Phonology
• Improve goal writing for Phonology
• Improve tracking sheets for phonology
• Take a CEU course for phonology

So let’s say that the flu hit your school pretty hard.  In knowing that one of your intents is to learn more about phonology, you could pick one item off of your next steps list and devote an hour to working on it.  The rest of your open time could be spend completing documentation/therapy prep.  But now you’ve moved an hour closer to your goal.

I wrote some abstract yearly goals, but I tried to get very functional on how I would address them:

Spend more time with Family/Friends

In looking back at 2016 though, I felt like I didn’t get to see or keep in contact with as many of my friends as I would have liked.  I also didn’t do as many things with my family as I’d hoped.   I envision myself sitting on my deck enjoying a cup of tea or a glass of wine with my friends.  

• Use meal prepping once per week to free up time after school to hang out with my son
• Read about three time management strategies
• Increase supper club from quarterly to every other month
• Start a every other month game night with my friends/neighbors
• Get bids for repairing my deck or building a new one (it’s hard to sit on a deck that is made of wobbly paver stones-after 13 years of lamenting this, I think it’s time to set an intention).  
• Develop email strategy to make sure I answer emails/texts right away (I am seriously the worst at this-I will think I need more time to text back-but if I don’t do it when I see it, it means I usually wait another 3-4 weeks before I get it done.  

Feeling More Gratitude:

I wrote a goal for gratitude because I think I fell a little bit into a “poor me” mentality last year and focusing on my negatives-or the perceived negatives in the world.  2016 just seemed like a hard year and I’ve felt more unsettled this year.  I think spending time focusing on what I am thankful for will help me feel more at peace in 2017.  

• Find volunteer opportunities in my community.
• Encourage my son to use Spend, Save, Donate, Invest approach to weekly allowance
• Save money to leave a big tip for a great server at Christmas time (I love those stories!)
• Pay off credit card bills
• Do a gratitude journal one time per week (at least to start)
• Continue to do yoga one time per week
• Try meditation

Improving professional knowledge

I generally have a professional goal each year-a lot of times this is set up through your work or annual review.  This year I am going to be our VP of communication for my state association, which is exciting but also intimidating.

• Understand what the VP position entails
• Block out time monthly to complete VP position as needed
• Read three articles on improving listening skills
• Finish online course on word retrieval
• Organize paper resources at work
• Identify one new work related podcast

Setting daily goals:  The Three Things Approach

I’ve had a giant to do list for a long time.  I like paper to do lists because I enjoy crossing them off vs. checking a box online.  But large to do lists can be overwhelming and sometimes I end up thinking about my to do list too much.  Now, I write three to do items each day.  These are the goals that I have promised myself that I will get done by the end of the day.  They are generally next step types of items-vs. a big project so it may be: write two pages of a TPT product or pay my bills.  Here are my three commitments for today:

1. Finish blog post on intents/goals
2. Complete meal prep for next week.
3. Put away presents from under the Christmas tree.

You can always add more items from your next actions list if you finish your three to do items.  It depends on the time that I have set for each action.  Today I am going to go sledding with my son.  In truth, I will watch him sled while enjoying a cup of hot coffee.  

To Do:  Try setting a weekly goal and three steps each day for two weeks.  Come back to this post and let me know how it went?  How much did you accomplish?